In recent years, computer networks have grown very popular with computer users for communicating and exchanging information. Such networks allow personal computer users to connect with each other, either directly or through a central communication point, and to exchange information by using a protocol common to each personal computer in each network. The term "Internet" has been adopted to describe the publicly available network to which virtually every personal computer in the world has access. Recent improvements in the software available for accessing and searching make the Internet a very popular source of information which can even be utilized by novices to computer technology.
Computers communicate on internet or intranet networks using a common set of standards for exchanging data known as the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol ("TCP/IP"). To initiate communication on a network, a user, known as a "client" contacts another computer on the network, known as the "server" or "host," by using various publicly available software programs. In private networks, such as corporate or business "intranets," a network protocol is usually used which allows a security system or "firewall" to keep internal data from leaving the intranet. In public networks such as the Internet, these programs use various protocols to organize information in a manner which allows the user to locate and access files of interest to the user. For instance, some files are organized by a hierarchical menu system known as the "gopher." A user can search the Internet by linking from an Internet site of interest or by entering the uniform resource locator ("URL") of the file on the gopher server which the user wants to review.
The most popular and user-friendly protocol for organizing information on the Internet has become the World Wide Web (the "WWW" or "Web"). The Web links information by associating items of interest to each other with a common TCP/IP known as the hyper text transfer protocol ("HTTP"). A Web user searches the Web by starting at the user's "home page," which is created and operated with hypertext markup language ("HTML"). From the home page, the Web user searches out and retrieves information by using "web browser" software. Web browsers allow a Web user to transfer images and texts from files of interest to the user's computer. Web browsers operate by allowing a Web user to identify a "Web link" of interest on a Web page and then execute the Web link to transfer the computer data associated with the Web link from the host computer containing that data to the Web user's computer. Web links perform this transfer of computer data by communicating the URL of the desired file to the host.
Businesses have responded to the available market of Internet users by creating a large number of Web pages which users can review. These Web pages carry a vast amount of information about businesses and the services and goods offered by businesses. Internet users can contact business through the Web pages to gain additional information about the business and, in some cases, can actually order goods and services through the Internet. Thus, the Internet has served as a beneficial means for informing the public about available goods and services and allowing businesses to advertise regarding the goods and services offered by them.
Accordingly, both Internet users and businesses would benefit from a system or method which increases the accessibility of the information which businesses place on the Internet. However, increased usage of a business's Web page requires the business to make capital investments to improve the number of Internet users who can simultaneously access the business's Web page. Further, a business gains little from advertising its Web page in hopes that an Internet user will visit the Web page as opposed to just advertising the business's goods and services outright.
Some systems do exist which facilitate the ability of a computer user to visit a variety of Internet sites in a preset or random order. For example, the Point Cast software program allows a computer user to specify a variety of information categories and sources and then directs the user's computer to display advertisements and/or snippets of the specified information categories and sources using PointCast's proprietary data formats, in an order controlled and biased by the PointCast software program. In some cases, the user can click on the advertisement or snippet while it is displayed and the program will connect the user to related content on a Web site via a separate browser program. Thus, in its passive mode, the PointCast user can only view partial-screen advertisements and snippets rather than full-screen Web content. Further, an advertiser has no direct control over the presentation of their advertisement or snippet as this is controlled by the PointCast software. Further, PointCast does not give an advertiser a full screen, but only a portion of a screen. Further, a user must download and install the PointCast software program on his system after which the PointCast software determines the format and order of information displayed. This arrangement makes the PointCast software program impractical for use as a commercial advertising tool controlled by an advertiser.